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Citizenship and Ontology in the Liberal State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Greg Hill
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Extract

Charles Taylor has developed a powerful critique of neo-Kantian liberalism and its ontological presupposition, the unencumbered self. According to Taylor, the trouble with deontological liberalism is that its neutral state is incapable of promoting the patriotic virtue that is necessary for the maintenance of liberty. This article responds to Taylor's critique by showing how the citizens of an ideal liberal state acquire a ready willingness to meet their public responsibilities in the absence of a government that promotes patriotism as a good for everyone. In particular, it draws upon Rawls's theory of justice to suggest how liberal citizens naturally develop a deep attachment to the political institutions of their community and to their fellow citizens. The concluding section of the article returns to the relationship between politics and ontology, arguing that unencumbered and situated selves are better understood as alternate moments in the life of the liberal citizen than as mutually exclusive ontological possibilities.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , Winter 1993 , pp. 67 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1993

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References

I'd like to thank Ruth Horowitz, Bill Lund and Michael Mosher for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.

1. Taylor, Charles, “Cross-Purposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate,“ in Liberalism and the Moral Life, ed. Rosenblum, Nancy L. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), p. 160.Google Scholar

2. It should be stressed that Taylor is interested in defending certain positive freedoms, especially self-government, as well as many negative freedoms. See “Cross-Purposes,” p. 171. His essay, “What's Wrong with Negative Liberty,” in The Idea of Freedom, ed. Ryan, Alan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 17–94Google Scholar, should be read as a critique of the claim that the absence of external restraints is a sufficient condition of being free and not as an attack on the idea of limited government.

3. Taylor, , “Cross-Purposes, ” pp. 170–72.Google Scholar

4. The atomistic-holistic dichotomy is a persistent theme in Taylor's work. See especially, “Cross-Purposes”; “Atomism, ” in Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 198), 2:204–26Google Scholar; “The Nature and Scope of Distributive Justice,” in Justice and Equality Here and Now, ed. Lucash, Frank S. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 34–67Google Scholar; and Sources of the Self (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), pp. 34–67Google Scholar.

5. Taylor, , “Cross-Purposes,” pp. 168–70.Google Scholar See also “Atomism,” pp. 187–88.

6. Sandel, Michael, Liberalism and the Limits of justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).Google Scholar

7. See Taylor, , Sources of the Self, pp. 21–3.Google Scholar

8. Taylor's advocacy of republicanism is scattered throughout many of his works, but see especially “Cross-Purposes,” pp. 165–72; “The Nature and Scope of Distributive Justice,” pp. 59–62; and “Alternative Futures: Legitimacy, Identity and Alienation in Late Twentieth Century Canada,” in Constitutionalism, Citizenship and Society in Canada, ed. Cairns, A. and Williams, C. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), pp. 211–13.Google Scholar

9. Taylor, , “Cross-Purposes,” p. 16.Google Scholar

10. See, for example, Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971)Google Scholar; Ackerman, Bruce, Social Justice in the Liberal State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980)Google Scholar; and Larmore, Charles, Patterns of Moral Complexity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. Taylor, , “Cross-Purposes,” pp. 175–76.Google Scholar

12. Ibid., p. 176. See also “Alternative Futures,” pp. 211–13.

13. Taylor, , “Cross-Purposes,” p. 177.Google Scholar

14. Rawls, Theory of Justice, Part One.

15. Rawls, of course, offers several reasons why the original position should be designed around these atomistic premises. See Ibid., chap. 3.

16. Ibid., p. 3.

17. This claim should be distinguished from another argument that Taylor advances, which is that a theory of the right presupposes a theory of the good. See “The Nature and Scope of Distributive Justice.” For a recent statement of Rawls's views on this subject, see “The Priority of Right and Ideas of the Good,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 17 (Fall 1988): 251–76.Google Scholar

18. Rawls's account of the formation of citizens with a sense of justice is actually contained in Part Three of Theory of Justice. See especially chap. 8.

19. Rawls, , Theory of Justice, p. 44.Google Scholar

20. Rawls, John, “The Basic Liberties and Their Priority,” in The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, ed. Macmurrin, S. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 29–34.Google Scholar

21. The four-stage sequence of decision-making is discussed in Rawls, , Theory of Justice, pp. 195–201.Google Scholar

22. See Rawls, , “The Priority of Right and Ideas of the Good,” pp. 272–73.Google Scholar

23. Rawls, , Theory of Justice, pp. 494–95.Google Scholar

24. Rawls, John, “The Sense of Justice,” Philosophical Review 7 (1958): 28.Google Scholar

25. Rawls, , Theory of Justice, pp. 462–78.Google Scholar

26. One study of immigrants to Australia found that naturalized citizens took a more active role in the political life of their new country than they did in their old one. See Wilson, Paul R., Immigrants and Politics (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1973), p. 93.Google Scholar

27. Moreover, liberals, themselves, have good reason to support courses in citizenship, provided such courses do not endorse civic activity as a superior way of life. See Rawls's, discussion in “The Priority of Right and Ideas of the Good,” pp. 267–69.Google Scholar

28. Taylor, , “Cross-Purposes,” p. 176.Google Scholar

29. Rawls, , Theory of Justice, p. 71.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., p. 22.

31. See Taylor, , “Cross Purposes,” p. 178Google Scholar.

32. Ibid., p. 160.

33. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, chap. 2.

34. The circumstances of justice are described in Rawls, , Theory of Justice, pp. 126–30.Google Scholar

35. This alternative is discussed in Larmore, , Patterns of Moral Complexity, pp. 73–76.Google Scholar

36. For Rawls's critique of the modus vivendi interpretation of liberal justice, see “The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus,” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 7 (1987): 10–12.Google Scholar

37. I'm paraphrasing Sandel, , Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, p. 179.Google Scholar